Eoin (15): Three months ago Eoin had sex for the first time. "It was all right, I enjoyed it but I didn't really like the girl and it's not the way I really wanted my first time to be. He admits he buckled under increasing pressure from his friends to become sexually active.
"It's a way of proving yourself and showing you are one of the lads. If you didn't do it they would think you were afraid and you would lose their respect." He thinks contraception is "very important" because "if she gets pregnant your whole life is ruined". He hopes the next time he has sex, it will be "special".
"I would like to be with a girl who I love and she loves me, that would be much better. When it comes to sex I think people should just do what feels right, they shouldn't do it just to impress their friends. I would tell anyone else to stick up for themselves more than I did."
Emma (16): "I think it's ridiculous that the age of consent for girls is 17 and it's 15 for boys. I think it should be 15 for everyone because some people are definitely ready at that age and other people aren't which is fine too." At her school they have had hardly any sex education "except for some talks about periods but they haven't been proper sex talks".
"I think we should be taught how to put on condoms, it wouldn't mean I would go out and have sex, I haven't and I wouldn't but I still think it's important to have the knowledge." She says she is opposed to the Silver Ring Thing because it preys on girls who have sexual issues. "People need to be having sex because it is normal. I don't agree with anything that makes it taboo."
Jenny (16): "It's your own decision when you have sex; if you want to grand if you don't that's also fine," says Jenny. "I haven't experienced any pressure to have sex. There are only a couple of people in my year who have done it and most of them are in relationships." She thinks it's "really stupid" that boys can have sex at 15. "Mostly girls tend to go with older guys anyway and we are more mature. But nobody pays attention to the age of consent anyway so it doesn't really matter."
Sean (17): He was 16 when he first had sex. "I was experimenting basically, being a typical male I wanted to do it more than the girl but then I backed away because I was nervous. But then I had kind of got myself into the situation and went ahead with it."
Now he feels it wasn't right because he was rushing into it. "Girls go on all the time about how they want the first time to be special but nobody says that guys want that too." . He has been in steady relationships with the two people he has had sex with since.
"I am a member of the Gaf Youth Café in Galway and we have had people coming in and giving us advice about contraception and STDs which I think is much better than doing it through school where we had hardly any proper sex education and if we did it was embarrassing."
Gillian (17): "My first time wasn't brilliant. I was 15 and I was going out with the guy for a year and half. We used a condom and I was also on the pill. My parents are really strict Catholics so I didn't ask them about it I just went and got a prescription. They just think I am hand-holding and shifting at this stage I would never tell them how far it goes with my current boyfriend."
While she says her first time wasn't a traumatising experience she looks back now and sees that she wasn't really ready. She hasn't had adequate sex education in school. "We've done talks on periods and that kind of stuff but we are not taught what we should." In her youth club "we get leaflets and brochures about lots of different sexual information and we are always able to ask people for a private word if we have problems. There have also been signs up in the toilets showing how to put on a condom on, which is important".
Patricia (16): "I think in some ways the Silver Ring Thing is a good idea. I would support anything that helps young people staying safe. I personally don't feel comfortable about the thought of having sex yet and I think it will probably be another few years until I am ready."
She tends to get disappointed with friends who go off with people just for one night. "I don't mind if they are in good, solid relationships," she says. Her longest relationship was for four months. "Sometimes people can lose all their teenage years because of boyfriends. It's a time when we should be having fun and meeting new people. I wouldn't just go off with some guy, I think it's shallow and sad and anyway I am young I have got the rest of my life to do that.